New Book on Jewish Babylonian Aramaic

Just in time for Father's Day (hint), Eisenbrauns has released a new book on the grammar of Babylonian Aramaic. I really should be reading more Aramaic (as should all of you), so don't miss this one!

This book is the first wide-ranging study of the grammar of the Babylonian Aramaic used in the Talmud and post-Talmudic Babylonian literature (henceforth: Rabbinic Babylonian Aramaic) to be published in English in a century. The book takes as its starting point the long-recognized problem of the corrupt nature of the later textual witnesses of Babylonian Rabbinic literature and seeks both to establish criteria for the identification of accurate textual witnesses and describe the grammar of Rabbinic Babylonian Aramaic. The book is both programmatic and descriptive: it lays the foundations for future research into the dialect while clarifying numerous points of grammar, many of which have not been discussed systematically in the available scholarly literature.

Rabbinic Literature Conference

This upcoming conference sounds really interesting, but unfortunately, I'm unable to travel to Bar Ilan University on such short notice or any notice for that matter -- too expensive. I don't think I could convince the department that it was essential for my independent study on rabbinic literature. The information below is copied from The Talmud Blog (though I tweaked the formatting). Go there for more details on the sessions and who's participating.

Upcoming Aggada Conference

Bar Ilan University Faculty of Jewish Studies Department of Talmud

Lander Institute Jerusalem Academic Center Graduate School of Jewish Studies

Touro College New York Graduate School of Jewish Studies

Announce a two day international academic conference on Aggadah and Aggadic Interpretation Throughout the Generations January 18-19, 2010

The conference sessions will deal with attitudes towards the authority of Aggadot, the methods used to interpret them, the use of Aggadah in biblical commentary, Aggadah in philosophic and in non-philosophic contexts over the ages, Aggadah and Halakhah, as well as Aggadah in poetry and in polemics. Participating in the lectures will be professors from the sponsoring academic institutions, prominent professors from most of Israel's major universities, as well as lecturers from the U.S.A. and Canada.

The sessions will take place on Monday and Tuesday, January 18-192010. On Monday the sessions will be held at the Mintz auditorium on the Bar Ilan University campus and on Tuesday at the campus of Lander Institute at 3 Am Ve'olamo St. in Jerusalem.

Reanimating the Golem

This is for my former classmate Jordan who was fascinated by the Golem legends.

Contemporary Alchemy: Petr Nikl offers a ritual to reanimate the Golem

The Golem, Prague's most mysterious and enduring Jewish legend, is closely associated with Rabbi Loew, also known as the Maharal of Prague, who died 400 years ago and is currently the subject of an exhibition at Prague Castle. Meanwhile, local artist and performer Petr Nikl is offering a different take on the Golem at the Robert Guttmann Gallery in Josefov.

...

Nikl is drawing on a legend with many roots. In the Hebrew bible, there is a word similar to Golem - "Golmi" - used in the Talmud to describe something that is unfinished and requires completion. It can also refer to a primitive person. The Talmud contains a story about an artificial man created by a third-century scholar named Ravi, and it also describes other scholars studying the mystical Book of Creation to create a small calf in an effort to imitate an act of God.

There are also medieval records from the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe referring to the creation of Golems from earth and water, which were animated by the mystical efforts of scholars through a combination of Hebrew letters. For Sephardic Jews, this same effort of combining letters involved ecstatic meditation, leading to the creation of a spiritual Golem.

Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm, who was a practitioner of the Kabbalah, is said to have created a Golem that went out of control and injured him. According to this legend, Elijah, who died in 1583, then had to destroy his creation. A variation on this story ends with the Golem killing him.

Prague's Golem is a legend first found in Bohemia and Poland in the 17th century. It grew in popularity at the beginning of the 19th century through the German Romantics, then was used in Czech art by National Revival figures such as Mikuláš Aleš and Alois Jirásek.

The Prague Golem is a figure of revolt and destruction, an artificial man who ends up threatening his creator. In 1909, a book by Yudel Rosenberg, The Wonders of the Maharal, told how Rabbi Loew created the Golem on the banks of the Vltava River to protect the Jewish community, which was under attack due to the blood libel, a rumor that Jews were making Passover bread from flour, water and the blood of Christian children. This gave the Golem a new face, which was developed further in Gustav Meyrink's novel The Golem (1915), illustrated by Prague native Hugo Steiner-Prag. Meyrink brought the Golem into 20th-century literature as a "formless phantom, a figure appearing from time to time in the ghetto streets like the materialization of collective thoughts, feelings, dreams of its inhabitants."

The best part, of course, is the possible connection between the Golem stories and the creation of the character of Superman, but this story doesn't go there.

HT: Paleojudaica

Recommendations: NT Pod and a New Talmud Blog

Updated with exciting new info!

I finally got around to putting Mark Goodacre's new NT Pod podcasts onto my mp3 player, so I could listen during my commute. Desiring as I am to be at least minimally informed of critical issues surrounding New Testament interpretation (in keeping with my overall generalist approach to biblical studies), I found his first three podcasts engaging and informative. They're rather short - around 5-7 minutes long - but they're just long enough to introduce an issue and get one thinking about reading the NT more closely. I highly recommend them for scholars and lay people alike who want an accessible, non-technical educational experience in NT studies

The online home of NT pod is http://podacre.blogspot.com/ and it is also available through iTunes or iTunesU (via Duke University).

You can find Mark's blog online at http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/ if the podcasts whet your appetite for learning even more about New Testament studies.

Now if only there were podcasts giving a similar intro into the wide world of rabbinic literature . . . but until that happens, at least there's a new blog about the Talmud. Being a generalist means you need to know a little bit about all this stuff because occasionally they intersect (see Jesus in the Talmud for example - could've been better but still interesting).

So, go - educate yourself. Read a page of Talmud every day and subscribe to the NT Pod!

UPDATE: I was just informed by my source on all things early Judaism that Michael Satlow has a series of podcasts on the History of Judaism. Looks like there are 12 so far, so I'll have to make more room on my mp3 player. Now if only there were podcasts covering everything I need to know for prelims . . . (though technically history of Judaism is part of that "everything").